Weird Science bases all of its political positions on ignorance

And all its kids are lazy and greedy.

Moderation through explanation. Alternately, this section could be called Where Dunning-Kreuger meets politics. Four researchers at three different institutions joined forces to ask a simple question: why is it that people have such extreme positions on subjects that are rather complicated and nuanced? "We hypothesized that people typically know less about such policies than they think they do," the authors write, going on to discuss their experimental method: asking people with extreme opinions to explain the issue. That brought an end to their subjects' belief that they actually understood the issue they were otherwise willing to argue passionately about (or, as the authors put it, "undermined the illusion of explanatory depth"). Once people recognized their ignorance, positions tended to moderate.

In contrast, simply asking people to explain why they like their preferred policy kept the illusion intact. "The evidence suggests that people’s mistaken sense that they understand the causal processes underlying policies contributes to political polarization," they conclude.

Today's youth really are selfish and lazy. At least relatively so. Between 1976 and 2007, over 350,000 high school seniors took a survey that, among other things, asked a bit about their material desires and willingness to work for them. One has gone up, the other down—can you guess which is which? The desire for money and material well-being hit a new high in the late 1980s, and has stayed there ever since. But, at the same time, people felt that the money should come easily: "When materialistic values increased, work centrality steadily declined, suggesting a growing discrepancy between the desire for material rewards and the willingness to do the work usually required to earn them."

That's how the authors put it in the paper. One of them, Jean Twenge, is a bit more blunt when speaking casually, referring to this discrepancy as a "fantasy gap." And Twenge doesn't seem to think it's a healthy thing, as he's said, "That type of 'fantasy gap' is consistent with other studies showing a generational increase in narcissism and entitlement."

Invasion of the jumping guppies. Lots of fish readily leave the water behind, leaping to either avoid being prey or to capture some. And then there's the guppy, which just seems to jump for no reason at all. The behavior is very deliberate, with the fish backing away from the surface slowly before reversing with a burst of speed. And they'll do it whether alone or in groups, and without any predators or food around. Although the behavior is pretty maladaptive for a fish tank, the authors surmise that it has helped the fish invade new territory in their native habitat, which features many small waterfalls. Naturally, the study was prompted by a guppy invading a graduate student's cup of chai. Fortunately, it was iced chai, so no scalded guppy.

It's always amusing until someone loses an arm. Over the past two decades, over 90,000 children sought a doctor's care for injuries suffered on an amusement park ride, an annual rate of nearly 4,500. The most common cause of injury? Falling off the ride. Head and neck problems were most common, followed by arm injuries. No word on how many adults fall off the rides each year.

Mate often, die young. That's the strategy male flies take when they see competition around. Put them in an environment with lots of other males, and they'll mate longer and deposit more proteins in the females they mate with. And it works—on average, these males produced more offspring more quickly than their peers that didn't see any competition. But it all goes downhill fast. After three matings, the number of offspring per mating declined, and soon after, they stopped mating as often. And, ultimately, they died young.

This is awesome. I make so many enemies with my moderate viewpoints. People on the extremes see my viewpoint as being on the other extreme.

I am so with you on that. I was called a flaming liberal and a heartless conservative in the same conversation one time. Though they shut up after I pointed this out to both of them, it didn't stop them on any other "discussions" we had.

I literally LOLd when I read the article. I mean it's informative and oddly interesting. Still, if I tried, I couldn't throw enough "obvious" memes at it to satisfy what anyone who's ever participated in an internet forum has known for years.

Well, you can hardly blame today's youth for thinking money should be easy to get, given the example set by our current economic climate of corporate looters, IP trolls, and the thin line between lobby-ers and the lobby-ed.

Well, you can hardly blame today's youth for thinking money should be easy to get, given the example set by our current economic climate of corporate looters, IP trolls, and the thin line between lobby-ers and the lobby-ed.

Well, you can hardly blame today's youth for thinking money should be easy to get, given the example set by our current economic climate of corporate looters, IP trolls, and the thin line between lobby-ers and the lobby-ed.

It's a combination of social values, a failure in the modern education system, and perhaps bad parenting in some cases as well.

I'd agree that the focus on materialism has been very bad for society as a whole. Emphasis on things like college are no longer about the learning experience for example, it's purely how it translates into money. It also leads to as the article indicates, a very supercilious mentality.

Well, you can hardly blame today's youth for thinking money should be easy to get, given the example set by our current economic climate of corporate looters, IP trolls, and the thin line between lobby-ers and the lobby-ed.

It's a combination of social values, a failure in the modern education system, and perhaps bad parenting in some cases as well.

I'd agree that the focus on materialism has been very bad for society as a whole. Emphasis on things like college are no longer about the learning experience for example, it's purely how it translates into money. It also leads to as the article indicates, a very supercilious mentality.

There were some interesting studies on this in the 90's by Juliet Schor, among others, pointing out that the lifestyle that TV characters lived were basically those of the top 10% of income earners, even when the characters themselves were not supposed to have incomes anything like that (i.e., "Friends", although it applies to almost every show). This has the effect of making some people think that they should live like that, or that it's normal to live like that, which causes problems if you are not actually in the 90th percentile for income.

(She also pointed out that "Keeping up with the Joneses," the 50's version of overconsumption, at least had a limit - you could stop once you caught up to the Joneses, who, being your neighbors, probably had a similar income. If everyone tries to keep up with the top 90%, there's really no end in sight.

Well, you can hardly blame today's youth for thinking money should be easy to get, given the example set by our current economic climate of corporate looters, IP trolls, and the thin line between lobby-ers and the lobby-ed.

It's a combination of social values, a failure in the modern education system, and perhaps bad parenting in some cases as well.

I'd agree that the focus on materialism has been very bad for society as a whole. Emphasis on things like college are no longer about the learning experience for example, it's purely how it translates into money. It also leads to as the article indicates, a very supercilious mentality.

There were some interesting studies on this in the 90's by Juliet Schor, among others, pointing out that the lifestyle that TV characters lived were basically those of the top 90% of income earners, even when the characters themselves were not supposed to have incomes anything like that (i.e., "Friends", although it applies to almost every show). This has the effect of making some people think that they should live like that, or that it's normal to live like that, which causes problems if you are not actually in the 90th percentile for income.

(She also pointed out that "Keeping up with the Joneses," the 50's version of overconsumption, at least had a limit - you could stop once you caught up to the Joneses, who, being your neighbors, probably had a similar income. If everyone tries to keep up with the top 90%, there's really no end in sight.

I think it's more than just a misunderstanding of the topic that leads to extreme viewpoints. It can also be a narrow focus on one aspect of the issue. You may understand that aspect of the issue perfectly well, but be totally blind to other facets of the problem.

The obvious one here is climate change.

For a few years, I was working as a programmer on climate models. I got to know some climate scientists who were at the absolute top of their game.

While two-thirds of them were non-partisan, and mostly disconnected from the social impact of their work (your typical theoretical scientists in other words), there were quite a few who could see the implications of climate change, and were passionate about getting something done. One, in particular, was a top-notch researcher investigating the impact of climate change on ocean currents. He was held in high-regard, but he was in an almost perpetual state of panic about the implications of his work.

Lunch-time debates were lively, to say the least. He constantly demanded immediate action to reduce emissions, but didn't really give any thought to what action was actually required, or how to implement it. His main practical suggestions generally involved an immediate global moratorium on new coal-fire power stations, and punitive carbon pricing to encourage a switch to low-carbon energy sources.

I would always be quick to point out that any such dramatic action would have a massive impact on the economy. "Great!", he would shout. "A global downturn is just what we need to reduce carbon emissions further!". For him, the problem was a simple one: reduce emissions regardless of the cost.

Even when I mentioned the political difficulties of reaching a global consensus on reducing carbon emissions, he would dismiss that as "trivial politics", and not want to talk about it.

I was totally frustrated with that viewpoint. For me, the problem is entirely a political one. What is the best way to tackle the problem in a way that garners popular support? How do we establish international consensus? Raising these issues, I'd be told to stop "playing politics", and get a lecture on the latest findings on permafrost carbon feedback.

Even though we were basically on the same side of the issue, we just couldn't have a sensible discussion at all. He would accuse me of not understanding the science and how urgent the issue is (because I'm "just a programmer"), and I'd accuse him of being a radical with no connection to political realities. As a result, discussion was basically impossible. Not because we had a fundamental disagreement on the issue, or even a fundamental misunderstanding of it. It was just that we approached the issue from such different angles that there was virtually no overlap in our priorities.

I'd agree that the focus on materialism has been very bad for society as a whole. Emphasis on things like college are no longer about the learning experience for example, it's purely how it translates into money. It also leads to as the article indicates, a very supercilious mentality.

If that was the extent of the problem, it wouldn't actually be that bad. If everyone wanted to go to university, work hard, get an honours degree, all to secure a good job, that would be fine. It would at least be an approach with a degree of internal consistency.

The problem is that the study showed this isn't the case. While the focus on material goods increased, the focus on working for them ("work centrality") decreased. People want expensive material items more than ever, but they are less inclined to work for them.

That disconnect is a real cause of social problems. If you want something, but don't have the inclination to earn it through your own efforts, you are likely to look for shortcuts to achieve it. That can be anything from fraud, to crime, to simply taking advantage of others for personal gain.

The issue of human belief systems and the human propensity for ideological combat is not simple. But, at a high level the answer is that it is a central part of our biology. Ideologies help humans organize our lives and are central to the organization of human groups. Humans have limited knowledge about the world we live in so we have had to find a way to act together without understanding very much about what we are doing. Like everything else that is a result of evolution through natural selection that process depends on a substantial variation in the outcome of behaviors that have some level of genetic determination and competition to chose the least bad results. Of course, in the case of an organism that is undergoing a process of unprecedented change, all those behaviors and their outcomes are very far from any predetermined equilibrium.

Can you really blame most of our population for wanting more than they can acquire without letting important things slip? Just consider for a moment how many advertisements you see that are trying their best to tell you that you need their product. The amount of platforms for advertisement has risen dramatically in the past decade, let alone the decades before, and it's climbing even more as advertisers find ways to weasel their advertisements onto more platforms.

I would love to see a long term study using the various advertisement blocking systems versus people that don't use them. I seriously doubt "tuning out" or "mental blocks" work as well as people seem to think. The stuff still has to be processed for such things to kick in, even if only at a subconscious level.

Of course every time I try to bring up this point anywhere on the internet I get the same irrelevant banter about how advertising is needed. That's not the point I'm arguing and would appreciate if it's left out of the argument should anyone choose to reply.

the one caveat I have: They say desire is increased while willingness to work for things is decreased. But I don't see a problem with that inherently, unless people think they deserve them without the work. There's things I desire that I won't have because I can't justify the work/effort to have them. For one example, I *really* want a water monitor (big lizard). But I won't have one because, as awesome as they are, the work isn't worth it. 15' or bigger cage, tons of food, etc. But I'd still list it as a desire. And I don't feel it's selfish or lazy of me to admit that I want something that I'll never have. It IS selfish of me if I say I deserve it.

They say desire is increased while willingness to work for things is decreased. But I don't see a problem with that inherently, unless people think they deserve them without the work.

They basically measured the importance people placed on money and on owning expensive items.

Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the students interviewed placed a consistently high priority on this, indicating that they saw the pursuit of wealth and of material goods to be an increasingly high priority in life.

On the other, hand, the students interviewed placed a lower focus on working hard. Hence the "fantasy gap" that the authors referred to in the interview.

Could the guppies be seeing their own reflection in the under-surface of the water and trying to attack the "other" guppy?

Unlikely, the behavior was apparently spontaneous, and was preceded by a preparatory backward swimming phase (likely to get a "running start"). Notably, there was no mention of the fish attacking the side of the tank with a mirror in it. They also did it in groups: while it's possible they might not immediately recognize themselves, it's hard to imagine an animal that swims in groups would immediately evaluate a fish similar to itself as either a threat or prey.

Internal reflection in water tends not to be terribly strong, in any case. I'm not sure the fish would get such an acute image as to believe itself to be in the image. Finally such behavior would be evolutionarily counter-productive (it costs energy to perform the jump), and should have been bred out of any fish millenia ago, unless there was some other advantage to the behavior.

So people don't know what they think they know? I can't say that result is particularly surprising - I talk to my mother quite regularly.

I don't necessarily agree with the second study's conclusions, and would like to see their methodology. Certainly when I was a teenager (three decades ago) I was very much on the "lazy and greedy" side of the scale. I didn't know much about the world out there, I had no idea what work would be like, I just wanted stuff, and wanted others to pay for it.

When I go on roller coasters, I always have this fear that my head will hit one of the bars that race past it. I think this is partly because I'm over 6' 3", and needlessly worry that the designers may just have built in enough slack for "average" people - or worse, children!

This is awesome. I make so many enemies with my moderate viewpoints. People on the extremes see my viewpoint as being on the other extreme.

I am so with you on that. I was called a flaming liberal and a heartless conservative in the same conversation one time. Though they shut up after I pointed this out to both of them, it didn't stop them on any other "discussions" we had.

I did some digging around, and I can't find any of the narcissism studies after the Recession started. Since it's been five years there might be a bit of cherry-picking going on. I would find it interesting to see that data mapped against real GDP.

They say desire is increased while willingness to work for things is decreased. But I don't see a problem with that inherently, unless people think they deserve them without the work.

They basically measured the importance people placed on money and on owning expensive items.

Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the students interviewed placed a consistently high priority on this, indicating that they saw the pursuit of wealth and of material goods to be an increasingly high priority in life.

On the other, hand, the students interviewed placed a lower focus on working hard. Hence the "fantasy gap" that the authors referred to in the interview.

I think he knows that. What the study didn't "study" was whether or not these high-want, low-work-ethic people thought that they deserved to live like kings anyway, which would be the actual problem.

Well, you can hardly blame today's youth for thinking money should be easy to get, given the example set by our current economic climate of corporate looters, IP trolls, and the thin line between lobby-ers and the lobby-ed.

It's a combination of social values, a failure in the modern education system, and perhaps bad parenting in some cases as well.

I'd agree that the focus on materialism has been very bad for society as a whole. Emphasis on things like college are no longer about the learning experience for example, it's purely how it translates into money. It also leads to as the article indicates, a very supercilious mentality.

There were some interesting studies on this in the 90's by Juliet Schor, among others, pointing out that the lifestyle that TV characters lived were basically those of the top 90% of income earners, even when the characters themselves were not supposed to have incomes anything like that (i.e., "Friends", although it applies to almost every show). This has the effect of making some people think that they should live like that, or that it's normal to live like that, which causes problems if you are not actually in the 90th percentile for income.

(She also pointed out that "Keeping up with the Joneses," the 50's version of overconsumption, at least had a limit - you could stop once you caught up to the Joneses, who, being your neighbors, probably had a similar income. If everyone tries to keep up with the top 90%, there's really no end in sight.

I think he knows that. What the study didn't "study" was whether or not these high-want, low-work-ethic people thought that they deserved to live like kings anyway, which would be the actual problem.

Has anyone actually read more than the abstract? I haven't, but another article in Salon about those damn kids (get off my lawn!) based on this same study mentioned some results related to this:

Twenty-five percent of blossoming Boomers admitted that “not wanting to work hard” might prevent them from getting a desired job. Among the Millennials, that number increased to 39 percent. (These trends were consistent regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status.)

Well, you can hardly blame today's youth for thinking money should be easy to get, given the example set by our current economic climate of corporate looters, IP trolls, and the thin line between lobby-ers and the lobby-ed.

It's a combination of social values, a failure in the modern education system, and perhaps bad parenting in some cases as well.

I'd agree that the focus on materialism has been very bad for society as a whole. Emphasis on things like college are no longer about the learning experience for example, it's purely how it translates into money. It also leads to as the article indicates, a very supercilious mentality.

Bearologist's comment was right on the spot, and I do not think we need to water down the statement that today's youth's values are solely the product of the economic environment and not a sign of failure in the education system or parenting.

You cannot blame the lack of focus on learning on failing motivation, when the measures of success in society are solely focused on money, and the correlation between earning and education is merely circumstantial. Today's youth should be crazy and stupid not to be lazy and greedy.

I am so with you on that. I was called a flaming liberal and a heartless conservative in the same conversation one time. Though they shut up after I pointed this out to both of them, it didn't stop them on any other "discussions" we had.

Doesn't prove you are moderate. Maybe you just have very extreme opinions that are not consistent with the single conservative-liberal axis. For example, extremely left-wing economic ideas together with a very conservative stance on social issues.

But yeah, I've actually had some success using the "please explain" thing the article mentions with people who hold extreme opinions I don't agree with. Even if they don't admit they were mistaken about something you can sometimes see that they begin to doubt themselves if they are unable to make sense of it.

Not that I don't hold any extreme opinions myself. Discussion and argumentation has also refined my own opinions. As long as the discussion is productive and not a shouting match, of course.

I think he knows that. What the study didn't "study" was whether or not these high-want, low-work-ethic people thought that they deserved to live like kings anyway, which would be the actual problem.

Has anyone actually read more than the abstract? I haven't, but another article in Salon about those damn kids (get off my lawn!) based on this same study mentioned some results related to this:

Twenty-five percent of blossoming Boomers admitted that “not wanting to work hard” might prevent them from getting a desired job. Among the Millennials, that number increased to 39 percent. (These trends were consistent regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status.)

No surprise on the study on kids. Smaller family sizes allows parents to spend more time and resources on one child making them feel more entitled. Add to that, that its practically impossible to fail in school and you have kids that no longer understand that failure is the easiest option and money is hard to come by.

I think he knows that. What the study didn't "study" was whether or not these high-want, low-work-ethic people thought that they deserved to live like kings anyway, which would be the actual problem.

Has anyone actually read more than the abstract? I haven't, but another article in Salon about those damn kids (get off my lawn!) based on this same study mentioned some results related to this:

Twenty-five percent of blossoming Boomers admitted that “not wanting to work hard” might prevent them from getting a desired job. Among the Millennials, that number increased to 39 percent. (These trends were consistent regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status.)

That doesn't sound entitled, or unrealistic to me.

Well of course, they asked them to explain the issue, which instantly made them more moderate

Bearologist's comment was right on the spot, and I do not think we need to water down the statement that today's youth's values are solely the product of the economic environment and not a sign of failure in the education system or parenting.

You cannot blame the lack of focus on learning on failing motivation, when the measures of success in society are solely focused on money, and the correlation between earning and education is merely circumstantial. Today's youth should be crazy and stupid not to be lazy and greedy.

How do you think people acquire a high or low desire to work for things? And how do people come to view material possessions as "important" or "less important"? This is a complicated question, involving messages one gets from media, one's economic circumstances, one's parents, perhaps one's family history, the job market, social movements, and political discourse --- but I'd be interested to hear how these combine -- or how one medium dominates -- to shape the views of youths across the US. Are you sure it's just the economic environment?

Marlor wrote:Even though we were basically on the same side of the issue, we just couldn't have a sensible discussion at all. He would accuse me of not understanding the science and how urgent the issue is (because I'm "just a programmer"), and I'd accuse him of being a radical with no connection to political realities. As a result, discussion was basically impossible. Not because we had a fundamental disagreement on the issue, or even a fundamental misunderstanding of it. It was just that we approached the issue from such different angles that there was virtually no overlap in our priorities.

We all have our moment of "arrogant" and "pride".

Believe me you are not the only one experiencing this. I have run into these type of people from time to time. Most of them were middle age educated foreigners but have only been in the U.S. for a few years. And so I learned it from my past experiences that the best way for me to handle those people and not to offend them in any way, or not to get them so mad at me, was to step back a few feet and let them do all the talking. It might takes a few hours for that person to let it all out. Sometimes takes him less times it depends on my luck of the day and the time he may ran out of breath, that stop him too.

I look at it this way, with a few hours of my time and my patient, I might learned something from him after all, right? Question is, can I afford the time?